FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT OVERNIGHT SUCCESS - PAGE 4

Pursuing a passion is rarely a straight path to success. Just ask goldsmith and jewelry designer Jonathan Lee Rutledge, one of 159 artisans selected out of nearly 800 applicants for spots at the American Craft Exposition, a craft show that drew 6,000 to Evanston recently. "This is my passion," said the former firefighter, who used to design jewelry on his days off from the Rolling Meadows Fire Department. While he had an interest in metals in college and started a graduate program in design, the security of paid employment detoured his dream.

Sally Murphy was a reluctant performer. Frankfort Junior High School was casting its Christmas show in 1974 and she had been called upon to take a part. "I was thinking, `There is no way I want to do that. It is stupid,' " she recently recalled. "Then they asked for a replacement, and for some reason I changed my mind. I don't know why. That was the last time I didn't want to be on stage." Since then, she has moved from stage to stage, locally, nationally and internationally.

The archetype that governs the life stories of successful musicians, country and bluegrass legends in particular, involves one or more of the following elements: violent father; music career to escape a life picking cotton or mining coal; early mentor/huckster who undeservedly lists himself as co-author of songs to share in royalties. There have been so many variations on this theme that a fresh take would seem impossible. Yet Charlie Louvin managed it. Louvin was a natural storyteller with access to a large grab bag of verbal licks.

A little over a year ago, Toni Trucks was performing in a touring company of "West Side Story" in Kansas. This weekend, she'll be in millions of homes as the star of a new show based on a hit movie. Her casting in Showtime's "Barbershop," which debuts Sunday, has all the makings of the classic Hollywood overnight-success story. She tells Zap2it.com that she doesn't feel like a total newbie, though. She said she did summer stock while in college and has worked professionally in New York, "but I'd never done any television.

As a practicing psychoanalyst, having taught courses on dreams for many years, it was gratifying to find your focus on the importance of dreams in the July 8 Tempo article "Overnight success." The article itself disappoints, however, because its superficiality demeans your readership and its almost exclusive emphasis on Jung misleads. Your statement "Jung's teachings are followed by most of today's therapists who work with dreams" is likely not true and needlessly slights other sophisticated non-Jungian approaches.

Barry Silverberg has done just about everything in three decades on the Skokie police force, from comforting kids to dealing with the Ku Klux Klan. Only one hat was left--the chief's--and now he's wearing it for good. Silverberg is a 29-year overnight success, starting as a patrol officer and working his way through the ranks. Silverberg, 52, has lived in Skokie for 47 years. He was named acting chief May 31 and formally given the job July 5. Early in his service, Skokie became nationally known when Neo-Nazis wanted to march through the largely Jewish community.

If you're an observant gin drinker, you may have noticed with increasing frequency a squat, opaque bottle quietly competing for real estate on bar shelves next to Tanqueray and Bombay Sapphire. Its simple white label bears the name Hendrick's, and like Tanqueray and Bombay, it's technically a London dry gin, that classic category boasting a handful of herbaceous botanicals and a wonderfully piney finish. But Hendrick's is peculiar, as its marketing boasts, and not just because it's flavored with cucumber and rose.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. But when the right actor finds the path straight into a corrupt soul on fire, a strange kind of joy erupts on screen - a sense of true discovery and excitement. This is what Andy Griffith brought to his film debut in 1957, in "A Face in the Crowd," written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan. (On July 18 Turner Classic Movies honors Griffith, who died this week, with four of his pictures, including "A Face in the Crowd. ") As Lonesome Rhodes, an Arkansas drifter who becomes a radio star, a stealth political adviser and a media-manipulating antihero, Griffith was like an attack dog on a rib-eye.

I have read first with humor, then concern and now contempt about the political rush to see how fast we can overwhelm already-wealthy individuals with millions and millions of dollars from gambling profits through ownership of the proposed off-shore gambling casinos. Instead, if we are going to be coerced into this orgy of self-indulgence, at least give the people of Illinois a fighting chance: Create an Illinois casino corporation and let ordinary citizens invest in the casinos.

Bryan Marchment returned to Winnipeg Tuesday night somewhat like a prodigal son returning home after becoming a success. The Jets gave up on the defenseman in July, 1991, when they traded him to the Blackhawks to get Troy Murray, who became their captain. Marchment figured strongly in the Jets' future in 1987 when they made him the 16th draft pick overall. But the Jets soured on a young prospect who refused to get in proper condition and failed to progress rapidly. Marchment wasn't an overnight success in Chicago, either, but you no longer hear complaints about him from the organization, as you once did. "It's great to know if I make a mistake now, I'll get the benefit of the doubt," said Marchment.